SRman

Next, we'll have to get them onto the dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide.

Love the Terry Pratchett reference! I have absolute proof that the world just cannot be flat: if it really was flat, all the cats in the world would have pushed everything moveable off the edges!

We actually bought the DVD pack with all three series. We hadn't known about the second and third series, though, because they were never shown here in Australia. I only came across them by accident. I still think the first story was the best, though (personal opinion).

They were Zephyr 6 models. Calling Zed Victor 2 ..... whatever! Shortly before we left England in December 1965, my father hired a Zephyr 4. He was mightily impressed with the boot space, being able to stand the suitcases vertically.

Mentioning Terrence Rigby, does anyone remember 'The Beiderbecke Affair"? My wife and I loved that serial - six episodes that started a bit slowly but built up with some lovely quirky humour. Rigby was 'Big Al', and other major stars were James Bolam, Barbara Flynn, Dominic Jephcott and Dudley Sutton, with hilarious appearances from Colin Blakely as the long-suffering Chief Superintendent Forrest trying to deal with the intelligent Sgt Hobson (Jephcott).

As mentioned earlier, there is a Silver Fox conversion, and an earlier conversion kit from Craftsman Models with brass sides and inner ends intended for the Lima class 117. Their class 120 conversion kit was almost identical except for the driving ends, which were also etched brass. The sides in these kits were the same for both classes, but required one small window divider to be snipped for the 119. I have done the 120 conversion, and have another kit to do the 119 in the future. If you see one of these kits, you could purchase eitehr the class 119 or the 120 to make a passable 119 model. Here's a photo of the 120, showing the same window layout as the 119. Mine was done on a Lima class 117 3-car set, but I later updated the motor chassis to a Hornby one from a slightly modified class 121. P_20181224_131014_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

For the BR Southern Region green coaches, beware that later releases of the same coach types used a much darker green. The earlier releases were considered by many to be too light and bright a green, the later ones too dark! My own personal opinion is that the earlier green was better, but a little too bright and doesn't mix well with other manufacturers' green coaches. From what I have seen of the later, darker ones - I don't own any of those - they won't mix too well with the early ones or other manufacturers' products (read "mostly Hornby").

A 9T9: I didn't know any of those had survived. Nice to see, anyway.

Yeah, but it can't have been for real. It was played outside of the country ... in Queensland!

True, but they always appeared darker, possibly due to the complete lack of daylight in The Drain.

That doesn't look too bad at all.

What scale are you working in, Newmodeller96? Also, I cannot read the dimensions on your plan, so it would help if you could state them separately. My memories of Orpington in 1986 correspond with Woodenhead's description. The car sheds were still in place when I used the station a few times during that visit. I think they had gone on another visit I did in 1999. Depending on those board dimensions, it may work in N gauge.

Class 508 body shells with the joints filled, then sprayed with grey primer. Some parts are still showing slight dips, so a little more filling and filing is required. I may ge these body shells to the painted stages, possibly even glazed and fitted with the etched window frames also supplied with the kit, but the running gear will definitely take me longer to get going.

My two don't get a great deal of running, but their running qualities are similar to those of Hornby's Pecketts - i.e. they are very good. I cannot report on longer term running, but the mechanism apears to be quite robust. Fitting a DCC chip can be a little fiddly. I broke one of the clacks on the red 'Katie', in spite of being very careful and knowing what to watch for, but fortunately it was hidden by the ladder.

I have been having a major rearrangement and tidying up of shelves and storage, and found a couple of unbuilt MTK kits I had forgotten about. One is a 2-car Derby lightweight class 108, the other is a 2-car early Derby lightweight, which has had the body shells painted green already - it was in that condition when I bought it, I have done nothing to either of the kits. It looks like I might have them for sale in the not too distant future, although putting things up for sale at present is not very convenient because of the lockdown conditions. In my position in a large high school I had some surplus computers and monitors up for sale on eBay just before the lockdown occurred, so had to wihdraw them (they were pick up only, and even now we cannot allow any unauthorised people into school grounds).

Yep, another EMU, and no, I don;t have room for it! It may end up with lights, but I have also been making provision for lights in the Bratchell kits for classes 455, 456 and 319. They can be fitted later, each with their own decoder, I think, for ease of fitting and maintaining them. Probably no sound. I have found that few of the EMU sounds available sound convincing to me, although the class 321 sounds in one of the class 319 unts is not too bad, and the class 350/450 sounds are very good.

Another diversion has arrived in the form of a 3D-printed class 508 4-car EMU kit. This will get a Replica Railways motorised chassis to power it when I am ready. I have cleaned up the open ends of the body segments (DMs have two parts, trailers have three) to get as neat and square joins as I can achieve, and have superglued the bits together, after using near-boiling water to heat the open ends of the segments to reshape them where they have distorted slightly. The joints will be reinforced with some 5-minute Araldite epoxy glue, and then filled and filed to make them as smooth as possible. The trailers are joined through the mid-sections of the bi-parting doors, so any slight gaps there will neither show not matter. I have to say the end details on these mouldings are superb. This is not intended to be a rapid build, but I will post progress as and when it occurs. The unit is intended to end up in BR blue and grey livery.

Not hijacking Marc's topic, as I will show this on my own layout topic as well as any further work, but here's the first steps on the kit I bought (no sign of the one that went missing though). I have only superglued the shells together here, after using some near-boiling water to reshape the slight distortions in some of the open ends of the segments. I will be reinforcing the joins with some 5-minute Araldite and then filling and filing to blend them.

Hattie and Sykes love their cat tunnel. This was a short clip of Sykes wrestling with it.

I disagree - see Olddudders' comment before yours and after my original post.

DCC is not necessary for multiple operation where the mechanisms are very similar in characteristics, hence my comments regarding mixing Hornby VEPs into the Bachmann CEP formations, where the motors are not well matched. That's where DCC provides some advantages, allowing motor running characteristics to be adjusted to more closely match each other. Yes the BIL and HAL stock were run interchangeably in real life, and the Hornby versions do run nicely together. I have run from two up to five units together. Here are a couple of my older videos: the BILs one dates from 2014, and that for the CEPs and MLV dates from 2015 - both vids taken before the upper level was operational, so using the LT underground tracks.

Yes, it can take a few attempts to get it right, but the quantities used are tiny. I have found it dries with a greenish tinted translucence. You should be able to overlay the previous too-shallow layer, but if in doubt, scrape off the first layer and try again.

There were certain rules when mixing different types of units, with all of the EP type units being compatible electrically. The limits were to do with the gearing and also with the numebr of traction motors. HAPs, as mentioned, had express gearing for a 90 mph top service speed, and two traction motors per unit, so didn't tax the electrical index if added to a couple of CEP/BEP/CIG/BIG/VEP units, which all had similar ratings and gearing, with two 2 HAP units equalling one of those other units. I'll come to MLVs shortly. 2 or 4 EPB units were only geared for 75 mph, with a few exceptions. Within the types, they could work in any combinations up to 10 or even 12 cars, with station platform lengths mostly being the limiting factor. If it was desired to run one or more non-express EPBs with one or more express-geared units, the top speed was required to be limited to 75 mph, unless two-thirds of the traction motors in the combined set are express geared, in which case they are permitted to run up to 90 mph. The MLVs have two traction motors for a single car, so twice the power to weight of a 2 EPB or 2 HAP/SAP. That's fine if added to a pair of CEP/BEP units (and later, VEPs as well). It was OK even with three such units, but it was really pushing the electrical index when run with three CEP/BEPs plus two MLVs (a total of 14 cars, something I remember observing regularly in the earlier 1960s). The SR came up with TLVs to alleviate this a bit, but then there were the problems of running round the TLVs, which had no driving cabs. It did keep the electrical power within the limits though. It was electrical power limits that also meant that 4 REP units could not run in multiple with each other, even though they were perfectly compatible. Two REPs together probably would have tripped all the circuit breakers within miles. For realistic formations, you can mix your CEPs and BEPs with HAPs and EPBs. For model purposes, you probably wouldn't notice excessive speeds. As far as the Bachmann models go, the gearing is the same, and generally the motor characteristics match each other well too. I frequently run two or three EPB units together (in a DCC consist), and two CEPs with an MLV with no problems. I have on a couple of occasions run three CEPs and an MLV, but can't sustain this as they are too long for my storage loops in this formation. It does look impressive though. As an aside, the only Bulleid style units with express gearing were the 36 2 HAP units built using ex-SR 2 NOL underframes. I have seen photos and videos of CEP/VEPs in multiple with HAPs and EPBs in the same trains. They would have been subject to the two-thirds rule for express running speeds, unless the EPBs were any of the limited number with express gearing. As another aside, running the Hornby units together also works well, but mixing Hornby and Bachmann units takes a lot of fiddling with speed profiles (using DCC) to get them to play nicely together. I tried this with a VEP/CEP combination, with not entirely satisfactory results.

I tackled the next part of the backscene along the back of the layout. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a single scene long enough for the whole length of the layout, so two separate scenes have had to be used, resulting in a distinct disjoin between them, although it's not too jarring overall. I will try to come up with a low-relief structure to cover that join sufficiently to 'blend' the two scenes. More annoying, though, is that I managed to get a large number of bubbles in the backscene, even more than in the original to the left. I tried a thinner mix of glue, but it still 'grabbed' far too quickly. Anyway, here's the result. It still adds more depth to the layout. Please ignore the clutter in the foreground as I am still rearranging shelves and storage at present, doing little bits at a time.

Addendum: I sat down this afternoon and fitted the pin-point bogies to the last car of the set to make it up to four cars. After a few hiccups with the coupling heights, it settled down to run reliably as a 4-car unit, so I am quite pleased with myself now. I do need to send the track cleaners through the tunnels again, though, to eliminate a few slow spots.